TOLEDO, Ohio — The race for Toledo’s next mayor is unofficially over, with the polls closed and all precincts reporting.
Incumbent Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz carried 68.90% of the vote, with challenger Carty Finkbeiner tallying 29.71%, according to unofficial results. The Board of Election must complete its canvass of ballots by Nov. 23 for the results to be finalized.
Kapszukiewicz declared victory early during Election Night, giving a speech to supporters and the media just after 9 p.m. At that time, only a small percentage of votes had been counted.
“Toledo’s future is as bright as we dream it to be," said Kapszukiewicz. "And tonight by a record margin, Toledoans overwhelmingly voted to embrace that future and reject the past.”
Roughly half an hour later, Finkbeiner arrived at his campaign headquarters. He spoke for around 20 minutes, addressing Kapszukiewicz declaring victory and taking questions from the media.
“It’s always wise for anybody who is in a competitive position to wait until the referee fires the gun to end the game or in this case the voters are all given the chance to have their votes count," Finkbeiner told WTOL 11 reporter Roxanne Elias. "I think it's really important to learn to be humble and I think the election is not yet over, though he has a lead."
When asked if he planned to concede, Finkbeiner said, "I don’t look at politics as a game, I look at politics as a pretty great opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives and then as you choose those people, let’s let the professionals make the final ruling on what the point scores is at the end of the game. We’ve got enough time. We’ve got enough time tonight, tomorrow morning, to hear about that."
Just after 11 p.m., WTOL 11 reporter Emma Henderson asked Kapszukiewicz why he was so confident in declaring victory early.
“Well, because we’re good at math," Kapszukiewicz answered with a laugh. “I may have declared victory early, but I think the numbers have held up just exactly where we thought they’d be. But, regardless, we knew early on when we saw the first results come in that we weren’t just gonna win, but we were going to win by a record-breaking margin. And I think what that shows is that Toledoans are embracing our limitless future, they didn’t want to go back to the past."
"So, we know our ways around precinct numbers and when that first batch came in it was clear we didn’t just win, we won by 30, 35 points," Kapszukiewicz explained. "And that’s an indication that the public wants us to build on our progress and they didn’t want to go back to the past. So, we’re gonna get to work tomorrow.”